Tales of the unexpected

A thriving farm and the site of a Victorian double murder lead the market this week

- Penny Churchill

SEPTEMBER saw the launch onto the market, through Savills National Farms and Estates (020–7016 3780), of the captivating, 483-acre Markwick residential and farming estate, which sits between the villages of Dunsfold and Hambledon, five miles south of Godalming and nine miles south of the cathedral city of Guildford, within the affluent Surrey Hills AONB.

For sale at a guide price of £8.4 million for the whole, or in three lots, the estate, which enjoys spectacular far-reaching views over rural south Surrey towards the South Downs National Park, was developed over a period of 60-odd years by the late, somewhat eccentric Peter John Rampton, whose family owned the successful catalogue sales company Freemans and lived in Hambledon village.

In the mid-1960s, Rampton bought Burgate farm, which adjoined his parents’ house. He developed and modernised the original pig farm, installing a state-of-the-art piggery with an automated feeder. The farm went from strength to strength and grew into an impressive, still thriving enterprise that is part of an estate-wide commercial farming operation currently run under a farm business tenancy until September 2027.

Farming rekindled Rampton’s interest in steam-powered machinery and engineering and inspired his other lifelong passion, his vast collection of narrow-gauge railway locomotives and carriages sourced from all over the world, which he repaired and restored at the farm. An intriguing relic remains at Gorebridge Green Farm buildings (part of lot 2), where a disused narrow-gauge railway line was designed to link to the main house, but never finished.